Intensity
by FallenMe
Summary: Kagome lived a hard life and is visiting her best friend's family when her past comes to haunt her...maybe? The story Intensity by Dean Koontz


1A/N: This is based off of the book Intensity by Dean Koontz...so yeah I couldn't think of anything and I liked this story line.

Disclaimer: I do not own the story line of Intensity nor Inuyasha! Intensity is Dean Koontz's an Inuyasha is Rumiko Takahashi's.

The red sun balances on the highest ramparts of the mountains, and in it's waning light, the foothills appear to be ablaze. A cool breeze blows down out of the sun and fans through the tall dry grass, which streams like waves of golden fire along with slopes toward the rich and shadowed valley.

In knee-high grass, he stands with his hands in the pockets of his denim jacket, studying the vineyards below. The vines were pruned during winter. The new growing season has just begun. The colorful wild mustard that flourished between the rows during the colder months has been chopped back and the stubble plowed under. The earth is dark and fertile.

The vineyards encircle a barn, outbuildings, and a bungalow for the caretaker. Except for the barn, the largest structure is the owners' Victorian house with it's gables, dormers, decorative millwork under the eaves, and carved pediment over the front porch steps.

Kuragasa and Mayumi Hiraikotsu live in the house year round, and their daughter, Sango, visits occasionally from San Francisco, where she attends university. She is supposed to be in residence throughout this weekend.

He dreamily contemplates a mental image of Sango's face, as detailed as a photograph. Curiously, the girl's perfect features engender thoughts of succulent, sugar-laden bunches of pinot noir and grenache with translucent purple skin. He can actually taste the phantom grapes as he imagines them bursting between his teeth.

As it slowly sinks behind the mountains, the sun sprays light so warmly colored and so mordant that, where touched, the darkening land appears to be wet with it and dyed forever. The grass grows red as well, no longer like a fireless burning but, instead, a red tide washing around his knees.

He turns his back on the house and the vineyards. Savoring the steadily intensifying taste of grapes, he walks westward into the shadows cast by high forested ridges.

He can smell the small animals of the open meadows cowering in their burrows. He hears the whisper of feathers carving the wind as a hunting hawk circles hundreds of feet overhead, and he feels the cold glimmer of stars that are not yet visible.

In the strange sea of shimmering red light, the black shadows of overhanging trees flickered shark-swift across the windshield.

On the winding two-lane blacktop, Sango Hiraikotsu handled the Mustang with an expertise that Kagome admired, but she drove too fast. "You've got a heavy foot." Kagome said.

Sango grinned. "Better than a big butt."

"You'll get us killed."

"Mom has rules about being late for dinner."

"Being late is better than being _dead _for dinner."

"You've never met my mom. She's hell on rules."

"So is the highway patrol."

Sango laughed. "Sometimes you sound just like her."

"Who?"

"My mom."

Bracing herself as Sango took a curve too fast, Kagome said, "Well, one of us has to be a responsible adult."

Sometimes I can't believe you're only three years older than me," Sango said affectionatly. "Twenty-six, huh? You sure you're not a _hundred _and twenty-six?"

"I'm ancient." Kagome said.

They had left San Francisco under a hard blue sky, taking a four-day break from classes at the University of California, where, in spring, they would earn master's degrees in psychology. Sango hadn't been delayed in her education by the need to earn her tuition and living expenses, but Kagome had spent the past ten years attending classes part time while working full time as a waitress, first in Denny's, then in a unit of the Olive Garden chain, and most recently in an upscale restaurant with white tablecloths and cloth napkins and fresh flowers on the tables and customers-bless them-who routinely tipped fifteen or twenty percent. This visit to the Hiraikotsu's house in Napa Valley would be the closest things to a vacation that she'd had in a decade.

From San Francisco, Sango had followed Interstate 80 through Berkeley and across the eastern end of San Pablo Bay. Blue heron had stalked the shallows and leaped gracefully into flight: enormous, eerily prehistoric, beautiful against the cloudless heavens.

Now, in the gold-and-crimson sunset, scattered clouds burned in the sky, and the Napa Valley unrolled like a radiant tapestry. Sango had departed the main road in favor of a scenic route; however, she drove so fast that Kagome was seldom able to take her eyes off of the highway to enjoy the scenery.

"Man, I love speed," Sango said.

"I hate it."

"I like to move, streak, _fly. _Hey, maybe I was a gazelle in a previous life. You think?"

Kagome looked at the speedometer and grimaced.

"Yeah, maybe a gazelle-or a madwoman locked away in Bedlam."

"Or a cheetah. Cheetahs are really fast."

"Yeah, a cheetah, and one day you were chasing your prey and ran straight off the edge of a cliff at full tilt. You were the Wile E. Coyote of cheetahs."

"I'm a good driver, Kagome."

"I know."

"Then relax."

"I can't."

Sango sighed with fake exasperation. "Ever?"

"When I sleep," Kagome said, and she nearly jammed her feet through the floorboards as the Mustang took a wide curve at high speed.

Beyond the narrow graveled shoulder of the two-lane, the land sloped down through wild mustard and looping brambles to a row of tall black alders fringed with early-spring buds. Beyond they alders lay vineyards drenched with fierce red light, and Kagome was convinced that the car would slide off the blacktop, roll down the embankment, and crash into the trees, and that her blood would fertilize the nearest of the vines.

Instead, Sango effortlessly held the Mustang to the pavement. The car swept out of the curve and up a long incline.

Sango said, "I bet you even worry in your sleep."

"Well, sooner or later, in every dream there's a boogeyman. You've got to be on the lookout for him."

"I have lots of dreams without boogeymen," Sango said. "I have wonderful dreams."

"Getting shot out of a cannon?"

"That would be fun. No, but sometimes I dream I can fly. I'm always naked and just floating or swooping along fifty feet above the ground, over telephone lines, across fields of bright flowers, over treetops. So free. People look up and smile and wave. They're so delighted to see that I can fly, so happy for me. And sometimes I'm with this beautiful guy, lean and muscular, with a mane of golden hair and lovely green eyes that look all the way _through _me to my soul, and we're making love in midair, drifting up there, and I'm having spectacular orgasms, one after another, floating through sunshine with flowers below and birds swooping overhead, birds with these gorgeous iridescent-blue wings and singing the most fantastic bird songs you ever heard, and I feel as if I'm full of dazzling light, just a creature of light, and like I'm going to explode, such an energy, explode and form a whole new universe and _be _the universe and live forever. You ever have a dream like that?"

Kagome had finally taken her eyes off the onrushing blacktop. She stared in blank-faced astonishment at Sango. Finally she said, "No."

Glancing away from the two-lane, Sango said, "Really? You never had a dream like that?"

"Never."

"I have lots of dreams like that."

"Could you keep your eyes on the road, kiddo?"

Sango looked at the highway and said, "Don't you ever dream about sex?"

"Sometimes."

"And?"

"What?"

_"And?"_

Kagome shrugged. "It's bad."

Frowning, Sango said, "You dream about having bad sex? Listen, Kagome, you don't have to _dream _about that- there are lots of guys who can provide all the bad sex you want."

"Ho, ho. I mean these are nightmares, very threatening."

"Sex is threatening?"

"Because I'm always a little girl in the dreams-six or seven or eight-and I'm always hiding from this man, not quite sure what he wants, why he's looking for me, but I know he wants something from me that he shouldn't have, something terrible and it's going to be like dying."

"Who's the man?"

"Different men."

"Some of the creeps your mother used to hang out with?"

Kagome had told Sango a great deal about her mother. She had never told anyone else. "Yeah. Them. I always got away from them in real life. They never touched me. And they never touch me in the dreams. But there's always a threat, always a possibility. . . ."

"So, these aren't just dreams. They're memories too."

"I wish they _were _just dreams."

"What about when you're awake?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you just turn all warm and fuzzy and let yourself go when a man makes love to you. . . or is the past always there?"

"What is this-analysis at eighty miles an hour?"

"Dodging the question?"

"You're a snoop."

"It's called friendship."

"It's called snoopery."

"Dodging the question?"

Kagome sighed. "All right. I like being with a man. I'm not inhibited. I'll admit that I've never felt as though I'm a creature of light going to explode into a new universe, but I've been fully satisfied, always had fun."

"Fully?"

"Fully."

Kagome had never actually been with a man until she was twenty-one; and her intimate relationships now totaled exactly two. Both had been gentle, kind, and decent men, and in each case Kagome had greatly enjoyed the lovemaking. One affair had lasted eleven months, the other thirteen, and neither lover had left her a single troubling memory. Nevertheless, neither man had helped her banish the vicious dreams, which continued to plague her periodically, and she's been unable to achieve an emotional bond equal to the physical intimacy. To a man whom she loved, Kagome could give her body, but even for love, she could not entirely give her mind and heart. She was afraid to commit herself, to trust without reservation. No one in her life, with possible exception of Sango Hiraikotsu-stunt driver and dream flier-had ever earned total trust.

Wind shrieked along the sides of the car. In the flickering shadows and fiery light, the long incline ahead of them seemed to be a ramp, as if they reached the top, vaulting across a dozen burning buses while a stadium full of thrill-seekers cheered.

"What if a tire blows?" Kagome asked.

"The tires won't blow," Sango said confidently.

"What if one does?"

Wrenching her face into an exaggerated, demonic grin, Sango said, "Then we're just girl jelly in a can. They won't eve be able to separate the remains into two distinct bodies. A total amorphous mess. They won't even need coffins for us. They'll just pour our remains into a jug and put us in one grave, and the headstone will read: _Sango Kagome Hiraikotsu Higurashi. Only a Cuisinart Would Have Been More Thorough." _

Kagome had hair so dark that is was virtually black, and Sango was a blue eyed brunette, yet they were enough alike to be sisters. Both were five feet four and slender; they wore the same dress size. Each had high cheekbones and delicate features. Kagome had always felt that her mouth was too wide, but Sango, whose mouth was as wide as Kagome's, said it wasn't wide at all but merely "generous" enough to ensure an especially winning smile.

As Sango's love of speed proved, however, they were in some way profoundly different people. The differences, perhaps more than the similarities, were what drew them to each other.

"You think you mom and dad will like me?" Kagome asked.

"I thought you were worried about a blown tire."

"I'm a multichannel worrier. Will they like me?"

"Of course they'll like you. You know what _I _worry about?" Sango asked as they raced toward the top of the incline.

"Apparently, not death."

"You. I worry about you." Sango said. She glanced at Kagome, and her expression was uncharacteristically serious.

"I can take care of myself." Kagome assured her.

"I don't doubt _that. _I know you too well to doubt _that. _But life isn't just about taking care of yourself, keeping your head down, getting through."

"Sango Hiraikostu, girl philosopher."

"Life is about _living_."

"Deep," Kagome said sarcastically.

"Deeper than you think."

The Mustang crested the long hill, and there were no burning buses or cheering multitudes, but ahead of them was an older-model Buick, cruising well below the posted limit. Sango cut their speed by more than half, and they pulled behind the other car. Even in the fading light, Kagome could see that the round-shouldered driver was a white-haired, elderly man.

They were in a no-passing zone. The road rose and fell, turned left and right, rose again, and they could not see far ahead.

Sango switche on the Mustang headlights, hoping to encourage the driver of the Buick either to increase his speed or to ease over where the shoulder widened to let them pass.

"Take your own advice-relax, kiddo," Kagome said.

"Hate to be late for dinner."

"From everything you've said about her, I don't think your mom's the type to beat us with a wire coat hangers"

"Mom's the best."

"So relax," Kagome said.

"But she has this disappointed look she gives you that's _worse _then the wire coat hangers. Most people don't know this, but Mom is the reason the Cold War ended. Several years ago, the Pentagon sent her off to Moscow so she could give the whole damn Politburo the _Look_, and all those Soviet thugs just collapsed with remorse."

Ahead of them, the old man in the Buick checked his rearview mirror.

The white hair in the headlight beams, the angle of the man's head, and the mere suggestion of his eyes reflected in the mirror suddenly engendered in Kagome a powerful sense of deja vu. For a moment, she didn't understand why a chill came over her-but then she was cast back in memory to an incident that she had long tried unsuccessfully to forget: another twilight, nineteen years ago, a lonely Florida highway.

"Oh Jesus." she said.

Sango glanced at her. "What's wrong?"

Kagome closed her eyes.

"Kagome, you're as white as a ghost. What is it?"

"A long time ago. . . when I was just a little girl, seven years old . . . Maybe we were in the Everglades, maybe not . . . but the land was swampy like the 'glades. There weren't many trees, and the few you could see were hung with Spanish moss. Everything was flat as far as you could see, lots of sky and flatness, the sunlight red and fading like now, a back road somwhere, far away from anything, very rural, two narrow lanes, so damn empty and lonely . . . ."

Kagome had been with her mother and Jim Woltz, a Key West drug dealer and gunrunner with whom they had lived now and then, for a month or two at a time, during her childhood. They had been on a business trip and had been returning to the Keys in Woltz's vintage red Cadillac, one of those models with massive tailfins and with what seemed to be five tons of chrome grill-work. Woltz was driving fast on that straight highway, exceeding a hundred miles an hour at times. They hadn't encountered another car for almost fifteen minutes before they roared up behind the elderly couple in the tan Mercedes. The woman was driving. Birdlike. Close-cropped silver hair. Seventy-five if she was a day. She was doing forty miles an hour. Woltz could have pulled around the Mercedes; they were in a passing zone, and no traffice was in sight for miles on that dead-flat highway.

"But he was high on something," Kagome told Sango, eyes still closed, watching the memory with growing dread as it played like a movie on a screen behind her eyes. "He wast most of the time high on something. Maybe it was cocaine that day. I don't know. Don't remember. He was drinking too. They were both drinking, him and my mother. They had a cooler full of ice. Bottles of grapefruit juice and vodka. The old lady in the Mercedes was driving really slow, and that incensed Woltz. He wasn't rational. What did it matter to him? He could've pulled around her. But the sight of her driving so slow on the wide-open highway infuriated him. Drugs and booze, that's all. So irrational. When he was angry. . . red-faced, arteries throbbing in his neck, jaw muscles bulging. No one could get angry quite as _totally _as Jim. His rage excited my mother. Always excited her. So she teased him, encouraged him. I was in the backseat, hanging on tight, pleading with her to stop, but she kept at him."

For a while, Woltz had hung close behind the other car, blowing his horn at the elderly couple, trying to force them to go faster. A few times he had nudged the rear bumper of the Mercedes with the front bumper of the Cadillac, metal kissing metal with a squeal. Eventually, afraid to go faster with Woltz so close behind her but too frightened of him to pull off the road and let him pass by.

"Of course," Kagome said, "he wouldn't have gone past and left her alone. By then he was too psychotic. He would have stopped when she stopped. It still would have ended badly."

Woltz had pulled alongside the Mercedes a few times, driving in the wrong lane, shouting and shaking his fist at the white-haired couple, who first tried to ignore him and then stared back wide-eyed and fearful. Each time, rather then drive by and leave them in his dust, he had dropped behind them again to play tag with their rear bumper. To Woltz, in his drug fever and alcoholic haze, this harassment was deadly serious business, with an importance and a meaning that could never be understood by anyone who was clean and sober. To Kagome's mother, Suki, It was all a game, an adventure, and it was she, in her ceaseless search for excitement, who said, _Why don't we give her a driving test? _Woltz said, _Test? I don't need to give the old bitch a test to see seh can't drive for shit. _This time, as Woltz pulled beside the Mercedes, matching speeds wit it, Suki said, _I mean, see if she can keep it on the road. Make it a challenge for her._

To Sango, Kagome recalled, "There were canal parallel to the road, one of those drainage channels you see along some Florida highways. Not deep but deep enough. Woltz used the Cadillac to crowd the Mercedes onto the shoulder of the road. The woman should have crowded him back, forced him the other way. She should have tramped the pedal to the floor and pegged the speedometer and gotten the hell out of there. The Mercedes would've outrun the Cadillac, no problem. But she was old and scared, and she'd never encountered anyone like this. I think she was just disbelieving, so unable to understand the kind of people she was up against, unable to grasp how far they'd go _even though she and her husband had done nothing to them_. Woltz forced her off the road. The Mercedes rolled into the canal."

Woltz had stopped, shifted the Cadillac into reverse, and backed up to where the Mercedes was swiftly sinking. He and Suki had gotten out of the car to watch. Kagome's mother had insisted that she watch too: _Come on, you little chicken. You don't want to miss this, baby. This is one to remember_. The passenger's side of the Mercedes was flat against the muddy bottom of the canal, and the driver's side was revealed to them as they stood on the embankment in the humid evening air. They were being bitten by hordes of mosquitoes but were hardly aware of them, mesmerized by the sight below them, gazing through the driver-side windows of the submerged vehicle.

"It was twilight," Kagome told Sango, putting into words the images behind her closed eyes, "so the headlights were on, still on even after the Mercedes sank, and there were lights inside the car. They had air-conditioning, so all the windows were closed, and neither the windshield nor the driver-side window had shattered when the car rolled. We could see inside, 'cause the windows were only a few inches uner water. There was no sign of the husband. Maybe he was knocked unconscious as the window. The car was flooded, but there was a big bubble of air against the inside of the glass, and she pressed her face into it so she could breathe. We stood htere looking down at her. Woltz could have helped. My mother could have helped. But they just watched. The old woman couldn't seem to get the window open, and the door must have been jammed, or maybe she was just too scared and too weak."

Kagome had tried to pull away, but her mother had held her, speaking urgently to her, the whispered words borne on a tide of breath sour with vodka and grapefruit juice. _We're different than other people, baby. No rules apply to us. You'll never understand what freedom really means if you don't watch this. _Kagome had closed her eyes, but she had still been able to hear the old woman screaming into the big air bubble inside the submerged car. Muffled screaming.

"Then gradually the screaming faded. . . .finally stopped," Kagome told Sango. "When I opened my eyes, twilight had gone and night had come. There was still light in the Mercedes, and the woman's face was still pressed to the glass, but a breeze had risen, rippling the water in the canal, and her features were a blur. I knew she was dead. She and her husband. I started to cry. Woltz didn't like that. He threatened to drag me into the canal, open a door on the Mercedes, and shove me inside with the dead people. My mother made me drink some grapefruit juice with vodka. I was only seven. The rest of the way back to Key West, I lay on the backseat, dizzy from the vodka, half drunk and a little sick, still crying but quietly, so I wouldn't make Woltz angry, crying quietly until I fell asleep."

In Sango's Mustang, the only sounds were the soft rumble of the engine and the singing of the tires on the blacktop.

Kagome had finally opened her eyes and came back from the memory of Florida, from the long-ago humid twilight to the Napa Valley, where most of the red light had gone out of the sky and darkness encroached on all sides.

The old man in the Buick wa s no longer in front of them. They were not driving as fast as before, and evidently he had gotten far ahead of them.

Sango said softly, "Dear God."

Kagome was shaking uncontrollably. She plucked a few Kleenex from the console box between the seats, blew her nose, and blotted her eyes. Over the past two years, she had shared a part of her childhood with Sango, but every new revelation-and there was much still to reveal-was as difficult as the one before it. When she spoke of the past, she always burned with shame, as criminal act and spell of madness could be blamed on her, thought had been only a helpless child trapped in the insanity of others.

"Will you ever see her again?" Sango asked.

Recollection had left Kagome half numb with horror. "I don't know."

"Would you want to?"

Kagome hesitated. Her hands were curled into fists, the damp Kleenex wadded in the right one. "Maybe."

"For God's sake why?"

"To ask her why. To try yo understand. To sett le some things. But . . .maybe not."

"Do you even know where she is?"

"No. But it wouldn't surprise me if she was in jail. Or dead. You can't live like that and hope to grow old."

They drove down out of the foothills into the valley. Eventually Kagome said, "I can still see her standing in the steamy darkness on the banks of that canal, greasy with sweat, her hair hanging damp and all tangled, covered with mosquito bites, eyes bleary from vodka. Sango, even then she was _still _the most beautiful, so perfect on the outside, like someone out of a dream, like an angel . . . but she was never half as beautiful as when she was excited, when there'd been violence. I can see her standing there, only visible because of the greenish glow from the headlights of the Mercedes rising through the murky water, so ravishing in that green light, glorious, the most beautiful person you've ever seen, like a goddess from another world."

Gradually Kagome's trembling subsided. The heat of shame faded from her face, but slowly.

She was immeasurably grateful for Sango's concern and support. A friend. Until Sango, Kagome had lived secretly with her past, unable to speak of it to anyone. Now, having unburdened herself of another hateful corrupting memory, she couldn't begin to put her gratitude into words.

"It's okay," Sango said, as if reading Kagome's mine.

They rode in silence.

They were late for dinner.

To Kagome, the Hiraikotsu house looked inviting at first glimpse: Victorian, gabled, roomy, with deep porches front and rear. It stood half a mile off the county road, at the end of the gravel driveway, surrounded by one hundred twenty acres of vineyards.

For three generations, the Hiraikotsu's had grown grapes, but they had never made wine. They were under contract to one of the finest vintners in the valley, and because they owned fertile land with the highest quality vines, they received an excellent price for their crop.

Mayumi Hiraikotsu appeared on the front porch when she head the Mustang in the driveway, and she came quickly down the steps to the stone walkway to greet Sango and Kagome. She was lovely, girlishly slim woman in her early or mid forties, with stylishly short brown hair, wearing tan jeans and a long-sleeved emerald-green blouse with green embroidery on the collar, simultaneously chic and motherly. When Mayumi hugged Sango and kissed her and held her with such evident fierce love, Kagome was struck by a pang of envy by a shiver of misery at never having known a mother's love.

She was surprised again when Mayumi turned to her, embraced her, kissed her on the cheek, and, still holding her close, said, "Sango tells me you're the sister she never had, so I want you to feel at home here, sweetheart. When you're here with us, this is your place as much as ours."

Kagome stood stiffly at first, so unfamiliar with the rituals of family affection that she didn't know quite how to respond. Then she returned the embrace awkwardly and murmured an inadequate thank-you. Her throat was suddenly so tight that she was amazed to be able to speak at all.

Putting her arms around both Sango and Kagome, guiding them to a broad flight of porch steps, Mayumi said, "We'll get your luggage later. Dinner's ready now. Come along. Sango's told me so much about you Kagome."

"Well, mom," said Sango, "I didn't tell you about Kagome being into voodoo. I sort of hid that part. She'll need to sacrifice a live chicken every night at midnight while she's staying with us."

"We only grow grapes. We don't have any chickens, dear," Mayumi said. "But after dinner we can drive to one of the farms in the area and buy a few."

Kagome laughed and looked at Sangoas if to say, _Where's the infamous Look?_

Laura understood. "In your honor, Kagome, all wire coat hangers and equvalent devices have been put away."

"Whatever are you talking about?" Mayumi asked.

"You know me, Mom-a babbling ditz. Sometimes not even I know what I'm talking about."

Kuragasa Hiraikotsu, Sango's father, was in the big kitchen, taking a potato-and-cheese casserole out of the oven. He was a neat, compact man, five feet ten, with think dark hair and a ruddy complexion. He set the steaming dish aside, stripped off a pair of oven mitts, and greeted Sango as warmly as Mayumi had done. After being introduced to Kagome, he took one of her hands in both of his, which were rough and work worn, and with feigned solemnity he said, "We prayed you'd make the trip in one piece. Does my little girl still handle that Mustang as if she thinks it's the Batmobile?"

"Hey dad," Sango said, "I guess you've forgotten who taught me to drive."

"I was instructing you in the basic techniques." Kuragasa said. "I didn't expect you to acquire my _style_."

Mayumi said, "I refuse to think about Sango's driving. I'd just be worried sick all the time."

"Face it, Mom, there's an Indianapolis 500 gene on Dad's side of the family, and he passed it to me."

"She's an excellent driver." Kagome said. "I always feel safe with Sango."

Sango grinned at her and face a thumbs-up sign.

Dinner was a long, leisurely affair because the Hiraikotsu's liked to talk to one another, _thrived _on talking to one another. They were careful to include Kagome and seemed genuinely interested in what she had to say, but even when the conversation wandered to family matters of which Kagome had little knowledge, she somehow felt a part of it, as though she was, by a magical osmosis, actually being absorbed into the Hiraikotsu clan.

Sango's thirtyish brother, Kohaku, and his wife, Kanna, lived in the caretaker's bungalow elsewhere in the vineyard, but a previous obligation had prevented them from joining the family for dinner. Kagome was assured that she would see them in the morning, and she felt no trepidation about meeting them, as she'd felt before she'd met Mayumi and Kuragasa. Throughout her troubled life, there had been no place where she had truly felt as home; while she might never feel entirely at home in this place either, at least she felt welcome here.

After dinner, Kagome and Sango went for a walk in the moonlit vineyards, between rows of low pruned vines that had not yet begun to sprout either leafy trailers or fruit. The cool air was redolent with the pleasant fecund smell of freshly plowed earth, and there was a sense of mystery in the dark fields that she found intriguing, enchanting-but at times disconcerting, as if they were among unseen presences, ancient spirits that were not all benign.

When they had strolled deep into the vines and then turned back around toward the house, Kagome said, "You're the best friend I've ever had."

"Me too," Sango said.

"More than that. . ." Kagome's voice trailed away. She had been about to say, _You're the only friend I've ever had_, but that made her seem so lame and, besides, was still an inadequate expression of what she felt for this girl. They were, indeed, in one sense sisters.

Sango linked arms with her and merely said, "I know."

"When you have babies, I want them to call me Aunt Kagome."

"Listen, Higurashi, don't you think I should find a guy and get married before I start pumping out the babies?"

"Whoever he is, he better be the best husband in the world to you, or I promise I'll cut his _cojones _off."

"Do me a favor, okay?" Sango said. "Don't tell him about this promise until after the wedding. Some guys might be put off by it."

From elsewhere in the vineyards came a disquieting sound that stopped Kagome. A protracted creaking.

"It's just a breeze working at the loose barn door, rusty hinges." Sango said.

It sounded as if someone were opening a giant door in the wall of the night itself and stepping in from another world.

Kagome Higurashi could not sleep comfortably in strange houses. Throughout her childhood and adolescence, her mother had dragged her from one end of the country to the other, staying nowhere longer than a month or two. So many terrible things had happened to them in so many places that Kagome eventually learned to view each new house not as a new beginning, not with hope for stability and happiness, but with suspicion and quiet dread.

Now she was long rid of her troubled mother and free to stay only where she wished. These days, her life was almost as stable as that of a cloistered nun, as meticulously planned as any bomb squad's procedures for disarming an explosive devise, and without any of the turmoil on which her mother had thrived.

Nevertheless, the first night in the Hiraikotsu's house, Kagome was reluctant to undress and go to bed. She sat in the darkness in a medallion-back armchair at one of the two windows in the guest room, gazing out at the moonlit vineyards, fields, and hills of the Napa Valley.

Sango was in another room, at the far end of the second-floor hall, no doubt sound asleep, at peace because this house was not at all strange to her.

From the guest-room window, the early-spring vineyards were barely visible. Vague geometric patterns.

Beyond the cultivated rows were gentle hills mantled in long dry grass, silver in the moonlight. An inconstant breeze stirred through the valley, and sometimes the slopes, softly aglimmer with lambent lunar light.

Above the hills was the Coast Range, and above those peaks were cascades of stars and a full white moon. Storm clouds coming across the mountains from the northwest would soon darken the night, turning the silver hills first to pewter and then to blackest iron.

Kagome was gazing at the stars when she heard the first scream.

A/N: That's it so far...let me know how you like it. If you don't I won't continue but please review I'd appreciate it.


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